{"id":30043,"date":"2026-03-29T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/?p=30043"},"modified":"2026-03-28T18:39:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T23:39:35","slug":"the-strange-gravitational-hole-in-antarctica-had-been-baffling-scientists-for-70-million-years-and-now-an-explanation-has-finally-been-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/the-strange-gravitational-hole-in-antarctica-had-been-baffling-scientists-for-70-million-years-and-now-an-explanation-has-finally-been-found\/30043\/","title":{"rendered":"The strange \u201cgravitational hole\u201d in Antarctica had been baffling scientists for 70 million years, and now an explanation has finally been found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gravity feels like the one thing in daily life that never changes. But beneath Antarctica, it tells a much stranger story. A new study<\/a> says the continent\u2019s so-called “gravity hole” was built over at least 70 million years by extremely slow rock movements deep inside Earth\u2019s mantle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known scientifically as the Antarctic<\/a> Geoid Low, it is a vast region where gravity is slightly weaker once the effects of Earth\u2019s rotation are taken into account. It is not a literal hole in the ice or ground, but a signal that the planet\u2019s mass is unevenly distributed far below the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: The Earth may have been \u201cfertilizing\u201d the Moon for billions of years, and one study suggests that the magnetic field may have acted as a highway for key elements<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

So what does that mean in plain English? In practical terms, weaker gravity can leave the ocean surface around Antarctica<\/a> sitting a bit lower relative to Earth\u2019s center, because water shifts toward places where the pull is stronger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That may sound abstract, but it could help scientists better understand how sea level and ice sheet growth connect over geologic time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What researchers found<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To reconstruct the anomaly\u2019s history, geophysicists Petar Gli\u0161ovi\u0107 and Alessandro Forte combined seismic tomography<\/a> with physics-based computer modeling. Forte compared the process to a “CT scan of the whole Earth,” except earthquake waves did the work that X-rays do in a hospital. The resulting gravity map closely matched satellite measurements, which gave the team added confidence in the model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their results show the gravity low has been around for at least 70 million years, but it went through a major shift between about 50 and 30 million years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: Fukushima surprises us once again, 15 years after the accident, with a strange hybrid of escaped pigs and wild boars, right in the middle of the exclusion zone<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The study also found that, at its present location, the anomaly grew by about 30% over the past 35 million years as buoyant material rose higher through the mantle. That timing overlaps with a crucial climate turning point, including the onset of widespread Antarctic glaciation <\/a>around 34 million years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the finding matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here is the important nuance. The authors do not claim this gravity anomaly alone created Antarctica\u2019s ice sheets<\/a>. But they do suggest that mantle-driven changes in gravity and relative sea level may have helped shape the conditions that allowed ice to expand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: Richard Restak, a neurologist, issues a stern warning to people over 65 and points out a daily habit that he recommends eliminating completely<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

For the most part, that idea still needs targeted testing, and the paper is clear that the climate<\/a> and sea level impacts remain speculative for now. Still, the work opens a fascinating door into how events deep inside the planet may have influenced one of Earth\u2019s most important frozen landscapes. Deep below the ice, the planet is still shaping Antarctica\u2019s story.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study was published in Scientific Reports<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gravity feels like the one thing in daily life that never changes. But beneath Antarctica, it tells a much stranger … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":30044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30046,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30043\/revisions\/30046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}